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Gold/Mining/Energy : Shear Minerals -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rocket Red who wrote (4)	8/3/2003 3:14:58 PM
From: Rocket Red	Respond to of 42

Meliadine East lacked the strong diamond chemistry of Churchill While the poor Meliadine East results are immaterial to Cumberland and Comaplex, they are even less material to Shear, whose kimberlites lie within an area where regional sampling has yielded excellent pyrope chemistry (high chromium low calcium G10's). The Meliadine East indicator minerals included only a few sub-calcic pyropes and these had lower chromium, though it is not clear if this poorer chemistry was just due to a smaller sample base rather than lower diamond potential. Whatever spin one puts on them, the Meliadine East results do serve to remind speculators that geophysical targets not supported by discrete indicator mineral trains with diamond inclusion chemistry do not easily translate into significantly diamondiferous kimberlites. Shear and Stornoway will be drilling 11 additional targets outside the area already drilled, and by the end of this summer will likely have established several clusters of kimberlites. By next year the Churchill project will also have the benefit of this year's round of detailed till sampling which will spotlight those areas whose kimberlite targets have the best diamond potential. With luck one of the kimberlites hit in 2003 will have significant micro diamond content, but the real test to make or break this play's diamond potential, at least in public perception terms, will not happen until 2004. For those speculators really hung up on the Meliadine East disappointment, it may be worthwhile to remember that Aber and Kennecott discovered dozens of barren kimberlites southeast of Ekati in 1992-93 by drilling magnetic anomalies. It was not until 1994 that the fabulously rich Diavik pipes were discovered 15-30 km to the west of the barren clusters. The sharp drop in Shear's stock price on Monday is an over-reaction in a generally jittery market plagued by the summer doldrums. The argument I presented in Tracker 2003-16 on June 13 as to why Shear's Churchill project represented fair speculative value at $0.96 remains valid. In fact, Shear is a better bargain today than a month ago.